What She Left by T R Richmond is, in many ways, a classic mystery.A young woman, 25 year old trainee journalist Alice Salmon, is found dead in a river. Did she slip in and drown after a drunken night out with friends? Did she kill herself? Or was she murdered? However, the way the story is told feels new and brilliantly executed. An elderly academic becomes obsessed with the case and compiles his own evidence – but what are his reasons for doing so? Using a mixture of blog posts, police transcripts, tweets, forum message board and diary entries, the reader has to piece together the clues. If you’ve ever spent any time reading the comments below the line after someone has disappeared or been murdered (never advisable) Richmond has managed to capture the tone perfectly, complete with those well meant but oh so casual RIP’s. With no linear structure, I did sometimes find it hard to see how everything was going to add up but it does mimic the way these cases unfold in real life: things are messy, everyone interprets things differently.

It was in fact a tweet that sparked the idea for the book. Someone was talking about what song they would like played at their funeral – an oddly intimate thing to share. Richmond began to wonder what else you could piece together about someone purely from their online life. We all, whether we like it or not, leave our own ‘digital footprints’. With this in mind, I set about to see what I could find out about him. Within a few minutes I discovered that he has been a journalist for over twenty years, and had read some of his award winning features online. I found out that he has had two other novels published under a different name. Delving a bit deeper, I found out the name of his wife, saw pictures of his cats, that he once set fire to a bin, and that he owns a set of Blue Denby pottery.

Being much in demand, I was pleased when he agreed to answer some questions.

I read that you got up every day at 5am to write for two hours before going to your day job as a journalist. I imagine things have changed dramatically since publication a few short weeks ago or perhaps not. What’s been the best thing so far about having a book on your hands that everyone is talking about?

Everything’s changed but actually nothing’s changed. I still have my day-job. I still get up early. I still like writing at that time of day (I’m working on a new novel). The whole experience has been amazing and there have been so many unforgettable moments but ultimately for me the buzz is the writing itself and that’s like an itch you can’t scratch. One of the best aspects of having a book published is suddenly being part of a team, For years it felt like I was working in a vacuum without any real guidance or support. Now I’ve got an agent and an editor who are a constant source of ideas, encouragement and, when it’s needed (as it often is!), constructive criticism. Knowing that you’ve got talented people looking out for you and fighting your corner is the best feeling in the world.

The onslaught of 24 hour rolling news sometimes feels that the news will eat itself. With the explosion of social media, it seems everyone is a journalist but with none of the legal training. Suspects are being named on social media despite warnings from the police and the press are often playing catch up. You’ve written about this here and as a journalist myself it worries me too. How do you think it will continue?

I’ve heard it said that the internet and social media will sound the death knell for journalists, because they no longer have a monopoly on providing information. Actually, the opposite is true. There’s so much information out there that the need for accurate, timely news that can be trusted is greater now than ever. There’s still a lot of brilliant journalism happening – the problem is that there is so much space to fill, whether it’s on the internet or on 24-hour rolling broadcast news, that a lot of what is served up is, frankly, tosh. It’s recycled, speculation, gossip and padding.

In terms of the public, I think we’re in an interim phase where people are going to realise they have a responsibility in terms of the information they share. If you have, for example, a well-read blog, you might not consider yourself to be a journalist, but you are in a position of responsibility and are governed by the same laws regarding defamation and contempt of court as those working in the media.

What do you think of the apps that will tweet for you after your death or the services that will keep your Facebook page going for your loved ones? Have you thought about what will happen to your online legacy?

Writing What She Left has made me think more carefully about my online presence. On a practical level, it’s made me aware of the dangers of, for example, tweeting holiday photos because it’s an invitation to burglars to target your home. In terns of how I’m perceived after you die, I’m not desperately concerned about that. I’ll de dead, after all.

The marketing campaign for What She Left is very clever as it really serves to enhance the book. There is a Facebook page for Alice (which I actually found desperately sad) and a tumblr page ‘written’ by the Professor. Can you tell us more about how these evolved?

We wanted the story to be as realistic as possible and it just felt inconceivable that Alice, as a contemporary 25 year old, wouldn’t have a Facebook page. Similarly, as Professor Cooke took shape, it became clear that he would inevitably want to continue gathering information about Alice even after the point at which the novel finishes. Hopefully the Facebook and tumblr pages are true to the spirit of the book – it’s partly about the online environment so it feels natural that it also has a digital incarnation. Hopefully they give the book a life beyond the page and allows readers to engage with the characters in additional ways.

The cover is very strong – it reminds me of Twin Peaks. Who designed it and did it go through many stages?

I’m delighted with the cover – the image and the title work together to make it really impactful. Sadly, I can’t take any credit for it as I have no artistic sense whatsoever so resisted putting in my two penneth. I’m a great believer in letting people get on with doing what they do best and Penguin’s designers know far more about book covers than I ever will.

I love the fact the audio version (available here) was narrated by Emilia Clarke and Charles Dance (amongst others) – a real Game of Thrones reunion. Did you go to the recording sessions and what was it like hearing your words come to life?

I went to one with Charles Dance. It’s a strange experience to hear someone else speak the words you’ve written but I loved it. It brought a freshness to the story and made me feel as if I was hearing it for the first time. I tried to play it cool but as a huge Game of Thrones fan, I was massively excited to meet him and probably totally star struck.

Many thanks to T R Richmond. What She Left is out now, published by Penguin.

It was my school reunion this past weekend. The Class of 83. I wanted to go and would have gone if I hadn’t been needed elsewhere. Now the photos and videos are rolling in. Some people joined in by Skype. Even though I knew what a lot of people are doing (and made and kept very close friends with some of them) it was different to see people moving and talking. They looked like themselves but not. It was weird to see the same mannerisms, the way someone folded their arms against their body, the same way of laughing. It shouldn’t be surprising, but it is.

As if this wasn’t enough to bring back those memories, I went to see The Falling. Directed by Carol Morley and with a soundtrack by Tracy Thorn, it’s the eerie, visually stunning and beguiling story of an outbreak of mass fainting and hysteria at an all girl’s boarding school set in the late 1960s. It conjured up so many memories: the elderly spinster teachers berating us for hoiking up our skirts, those very intense friendships, the rumours spreading like wildfire. I was back in our chemistry lab with its bunsen burners and Belfast sinks – the smell of sulphur mixed with charred wood (from those long handled pincer like pegs); the biology lab with its rows of frogs and hedgehogs suspended upside down in pickling jars.

My school was once an elegant Georgian manor house, built from honey coloured stone, with symmetrically placed sash windows, terraces, spiral staircases, and a warren of attic rooms – once the servants quarters. The bursar worked in the cellar, and reported us for holding seances down there. I see us in our stupid bottle green tulip-shaped bonnets which obscured your line of vision when you turned your head to the left, to the right. They had to ban them when a girl was killed crossing the road. I still don’t know if that’s apocryphal.

And finally, because these things always come in threes I find, I stumbled across this project called Yearbook. (listen here on Soundcloud). It’s an ongoing project by Luke Wiget interviewing writers and the first is an interview with an author called Darcey Steinke (who I’ve only just discovered but Sister Golden Hair is how I’d like to be able to write). It throws up all sorts of interesting questions about how writers mine their own lives for material, how people saw you versus how you saw yourself. We didn’t have Yearbooks – they’re not really done in the UK. I still have my autograph book though – the candy coloured pages are warped like a Marcel Wave. On the last day of school, I fell (or was I pushed?) into the pond onto a hidden bed of jagged glass from discarded school milk bottles and cut my leg through to the bone. The scar on my shin, listed on my passport, serves as a constant reminder.

April came and went in a flurry. It seemed like I had only just put away my wooden rabbit decorations before they were out again. Easter was sponsored by Reese’s Peanut Butter and Peeps carefully brought back from New York in Walgreens carriers. We spent the first week saying ,’This time last week we were….’ and everywhere there were little reminders; receipts stamped ‘251 e 13th st nyc,’ in trouser pockets, ticket stubs from the Staten Island ferry lurking at the bottom of bags. I wondered who was looking out of our hotel window, watching the lights come on over the skyline.

Back into the routine, I logged on to an inbox teeming with press releases about Father’s Day. ‘Treat him to a new Lawnmower – you know he deserves it!’ Next came Facebook’s cheery messages Hey – Alison, exactly this time two years ago your father was critically ill in hospital? Remember?’ Yes, I remember, thanks. Every last thing. I know it’s only algorithms that brought that post up to the surface, but yeah, good old Facebook.

I had lots of things on the April calendar which, one by one, were scuppered. A vomiting child, a derailed train (empty so thankfully no one hurt but caused days of havoc). I should have just carried on enjoying Frank Underwood’s machinations, but instead I tortured myself by watching the events I should have been at unfold online. That’s the double bind of social media – whilst it is still amazing to me you can experience things vicariously, I still ended up feeling like Tiny Tim pressing his nose up against the window of the toyshop.

What I read in April

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller (Penguin)

I really loved this beautifully crafted tale. It’s the story of 8 year old Peggy who is taken deep, deep into the forests by her father to an abandoned wooden cabin. She thinks they are just going on a long hike but they end up staying for nine years. Set in the long hot summer of 1976 (which has inspired so many authors) he tells her that the world has been destroyed and that they are the only two left. It swaps between then and 1985 so we know from the outset she survives but the way Fuller reveals the truth of what really happened is expertly handled. The descriptions of nature and how they actually live day to day are riveting. It’s about the lies that adults tell and the damage they can inflict; the way that children can’t read a situation and how it becomes clear to them only in adulthood. It had extra resonance because I was about that age in 1976 and so all the references to The Railway Children etc really took me back. This is me during that summer (wearing an Aaran jumper in the heat for some peculiar reason).

All This has Nothing to Do With Me by Monica Sabolo (Picador)

This is a very odd little book – very slight and barely even a novella, with many of the pages taken up entirely with photographs. Translated from the original French, it chronicles one woman’s obsession with a male colleague who takes a job on the magazine where she works. She steals a succession of his cigarette lighters as little souvenirs and catalogues them. She draws a map of where he sits in the office complete with photocopier. If you’ve ever stalked anyone on Facebook, some of the letters she writes to the CEO of the Parisian office, seeking clarification about whether people can tell how many times their profile has been viewed, were very funny. Overall, it was a bit style over substance and it will be compared to Leanne Shapton’s ImportantArtifacts and Personal Property…’ which told the story of a relationship breakdown presented as an auction catalogue. Maybe I’m not the target market but ‘All This’ didn’t quite work for me.

How To Make a Friend by Fleur Smithwick (Transworld)

This is the story of Alice, a photographer, who is driving herself and two good friends, Rory and Daniel, back from her Dad’s wedding to his second wife, when they are involved in a head on car crash. She wakes from a coma, to discover that Rory died. Sitting on the end of her bed, is her invisible friend, Sam, who was her companion through her lonely childhood – all grown up. Why is he back now? Is he more than a figment of her imagination? Is it the result of the head injury or is she going mad? Knowing that if she is ‘cured’ he will no longer be needed, Sam begins to be threatening towards those she loves, especially to Jonathan, the long held object of her affections. I found the premise really fascinating and the family relationships (a cold distant mother, the dynamics between blended families ) very well drawn. Fleur also has a great author blog here.

I also read the ubiquitous The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins (the fastest selling adult novel in history!), Disclaimer by Renee Knight (yes, my jaw was on the floor) Nora Webster by Colm Toibin which left me slightly cold, the excellent The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett which is going to be huge (more on that closer to publication) and the also brilliantly original suspense novel What She Left by T R Richmond (a Q & A with the author is in the pipeline).

You know how sometimes the voice just leaps off the page and grabs you in certain books? That’s what happened to me on the first page of The Girl In the Red Coat.

I’d mentally bookmarked this book as one to read after The Observer picked the author, Kate Hamer, as one of their New Faces of Fiction 2015 back in early January, and on Twitter there was a real buzz about it. But when it came to it, I had a curious sense of resistance. Another book about a missing child.

But this book is nothing like I thought. It is so much more.

The Girl in the Red Coat is the story of Beth, a single mother, and her eight year old daughter, Carmel. She has a fractious relationship with her ex, Paul, who has a new partner Lucy. Having had sporadic contact, he suddenly appears after five months to take Carmel out. In addition, Beth no longer speaks to her parents and Carmel doesn’t see them any more, but we don’t know why. These fractured relationships Hamer describes are so convincing and well drawn. There is none of the ‘perfect lives are shattered’ theme here.

On the day Carmel goes missing, Beth wants her to stay close, Carmel feels tied to her, straining at the leash. Dressed in a red coat, she keeps an eye out for that flash of scarlet as she browses the bookstall at a story teller’s fair. We know it is coming, because we have been told from the start, but the whole sequence detailing when she actually disappears, is brilliantly written, capturing that rising tide of hysterical panic, when time seems to slow down. The circumstances in which she is abducted are chillingly plausible; she is taken by a man posing as her estranged grandfather, pretending her mother has had an accident who says he will drive her to the hospital.

The narrative is split between Beth’s point of view and Carmel’s and this, for me, is where the real strength of the book lies. I think you know when a child narrator’s voice is authentic or not and this one was utterly captivating. The ways she sees the world, the similes she uses, are all just perfect. When she finds comfort in the familiarity of the 57 Varieties label on a can of baked beans in her strange and bewildering new surroundings, I was floored for a moment.

Beth and Carmel go on their separate journeys both literally and emotionally and yet neither, particularly Carmel, took the journey I was expecting. The passage of time is beautifully rendered. It was hard not to just rush to the end to see how it resolved.

That push-me-pull-you mother and daughter relationship is beautifully expressed throughout, capturing all its nuances and complexities, something I find endlessly fascinating. I remember vividly feeling like Carmel (and getting lost for hours and hours at Badminton Horse Trials when I got to be driven round the grounds in a police car ) and also now with my own daughter who has had a succession of red coats because she wanted to be like Little Red Riding Hood and I wanted to be able to spot her on the far side of the park. The time I lost her on Witterings Beach is still the longest twenty minutes of my life. It’s that universal struggle of how you balance keeping them safe with not letting anxiety rule your life. And moreover, theirs.

There is so much to think about in this book, the way different people handle grief differently, the apportioning of blame, the way friends rally round, or say stupid but well intentioned things, about moving on and not moving on. What we will, if we were parted, remember of each other.

I’ve been consciously shying away from books and films with the subject of Alzheimer’s since the end of last Summer, when my father passed away from the disease. Whether it was selfish or self preservation I’m not sure because before that moment I had greedily read everything I could on the subject in an effort to understand what was happening. I read non fiction such as Where Do Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything by Sally Magnusson, novels such as Samantha Harvey’s The Wilderness and Emma Healey’s Elizabeth is Missing. The disease took him on a long, slow, inexorable descent, horrible to witness, so I opted to try and forget.

With all the publicity surrounding the film Still Alice, crowned by Julianne Moore’s Oscar win on Sunday (an actor I have long admired) I felt ready to read the book upon which the film is based.

Still Alice, by author Lisa Genova, is the story of Dr Alice Howland, a well liked and respected Harvard professor who has a doctorate in psychology, with specific expertise in linguistics. She loves her job; her identity is bound up in it. Coupled with this she has a husband, John, who has an equally demanding career, and three grown up children. One day, during a lecture with the audience waiting expectantly, she is totally flummoxed when she cannot think of a particular word.

A few more instances of unsettling memory lapses occur but still she puts it down to stress, being busy, to possible menopausal symptoms or lack of sleep.

Next, more frightening, is when she is out for her usual run, in a place not a mile from her home where she runs every day and in a place where she has lived for twenty five years, she suddenly has no idea where she is. It is not so much she is lost, as she feels totally disoriented. Like a panic attack, this sense of uneasy disconnected dread is described so well.

After a complete and through series of MRIs and tests and assessments (which Genova says in the author’s notes that she truncated out of necessity otherwise the book would have run to many more pages) she is given the totally shattering diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s. She is just fifty years old.

At first she cannot believe it and rages and rails against it, keeping it secret from her colleagues. (They begin to think she has a substance abuse problem). She experiences a sense of shame and growing isolation. In an affecting scene, which brought back vivid personal memories, she visits a dementia unit which is likely to be her future. There is no one at all her age. She tries to find a support group but there is nothing for people with early on-set Alzheimer’s sufferers, so she sets one up herself.

There are some blackly comic episodes where Alice ransacks the entire house, even reduced to spilling and rummaging through the contents of a bin on the floor, looking for something – only she cannot remember what it is she is looking for, or find the noun to tell her husband what it is, and another where she surprises her neighbour by appearing in her kitchen, thinking it is her own.

The spark for the idea for the book came from Genova’s grandmother who had Alzheimer’s in her eighties but it made her think what it would be like to actually know you had it – before the disease really takes hold, when you are still able to understand, or have periods of lucidity. The real strength in the book is remaining with Alice’s viewpoint. We are always in her head. She is perhaps the ultimate unreliable narrator. Her doctor gives her a series of questions to answer ; where does she live, how many children does she have etc. It is the reader who sees she can no longer answer them, when she calls her daughter ‘the actress’ instead of by her name, Lydia, when she can hear conversations going on around her but only loosely realise they are about her.

Actual people who are going through this have vouched for its veracity – surely the highest compliment there is. People with early on-set Alzheimer’s are nowhere to be seen in the media or discussion, and Genova says she wanted to give this invisible group a voice. I came away with a renewed sense of the importance to treat people living with dementia with care and sensitivity – that they are not a bunch of symptoms, to be hidden away in care homes. Its message is that whatever ravages the disease takes on the brain, that the essence of the person – their soul, their spirit, their ‘me – ness’ – whatever you want to call it – remains intact.

Although Still Alice was unbearably bleakly sad, it was also life affirming. When everything is systematically stripped away, what is left is her emotional connections with her family. What remains is love.

I know I will see the film and cry for the fictional Alice, for all the real ‘Alice’s, for all the families going through it, for my Dad.

I’m delighted to welcome author Lizzie Enfield on to my blog on the publication day of her third novel ‘Living With It.’

Living With It is a thought provoking novel that takes the MMR controversy as its springboard, and explores the devastating repercussions of one decision taken many years before. A group of longstanding friends go away on holiday to France together; Ben and Maggie and their nine month old baby Iris, Isobel, her husband Ben and their three children, one of whom has been exposed to the measles virus. Baby Iris becomes ill and as a result, is left profoundly deaf. Isobel has not had any of her children vaccinated and when she discovers what has happened to Iris, she is wrought with guilt. The situation is further complicated by Isobel and Ben having a shared romantic history. The story deals with the complicated emotional fall out; divided marital loyalties, the apportioning of blame and guilt and the damage wrought on all their interlocking friendships.

What research did you do for Living With It? Do you tend to research before beginning your first draft or as and when needed? Was there one thing that jumped out at you and made the story come alive?

I did a little research into deafness and its causes and effects but not too much as I did not want the story to be dictated by what I knew but rather by the emotions and actions of the characters. For me what made the story come alive is the central dilemma the characters face i.e. what if a decision you had made years ago, in good faith, comes back to haunt you in ways you had never envisaged.

Your dialogue is very realistic in that in that I think most couples will recognise those underlying tensions and simmering resentments (!). You have an excellent ear for the things that are left unsaid versus the things that are said. Do you find dialogue easy? Do you have anything specific you do to get the voice of a character down on the page and differentiate it from another?

Thank you! I talk a lot so I suppose dialogue comes easily and I used to work in radio so tend to listen out for people and the way that they talk. I think you have to get quite far inside the heads of characters to differentiate their speech, so that it comes from the heart rather than the mouth and will therefore me unique to them rather than generic.

I think you have captured perfectly the tensions of going away with a group of friends – even friends you have known and loved for years. All the little differences in bedtime routines, discipline which are heightened by being in close proximity. I know my husband and I have whispered conspiratorially to each other once in the privacy of our room ‘I can’t believe they do that!’ and I’m sure they have said the same about us. But is there anything that would be a deal breaker for you which would mean the end of the friendship?

I hate falling out with people. Some friendships you simply grow out of but it would take something quite extreme for me to fall out with a close friend and would almost definitely involve deliberate harm to one of my children.

One of my children was born at the height of the MMR controversy and all my ante natal class could talk about was the (now discredited) Dr Andrew Wakefield report and we were very anxious. What gave you the initial idea? Did you experience something similar?

My middle child was born in the middle of it and I found the decision very difficult but I also grew up knowing someone who had become deaf as a result of measles and my mother had a friend whose baby had died from it. So I was aware of the risks but also the responsibilities parents of healthy children have to the wider community to provide herd immunity by getting their children vaccinated.

Some children are not healthy enough to be immunised and are at greater risk of the diseases than others. The rest of us are, I think, obliged to think very seriously about the potential consequences of not doing so, although I do fully understand the fears that crowd in on you when something might affect your own child. It’s very hard to always act “in the greater public good” when you feel your own family might be compromised in some way. We are all human and we all want to protect are nearest and dearest.

If you found yourself in the same situation as Ben and Maggie, would you have taken legal action against Isobel?

I tend towards the least stressful path and I think by deciding to pursue that route, Ben puts his own family under increased strain at what already is a difficult time. So, no. I don’t think I would but you never know how you will behave in a certain situation until you are in it. I think I’d be very angry and anger is a powerful emotion. I found, as I wrote the book that the things I thought I saw clearly became less clear and the way I imagined I might act in similar situations less obvious too.

Do you have a writing routine? A specific type of notebook or pen? A set time of day? A target word count? Do you think these things matter or are they just distractions?

I think if you are to get anything done it is important to find time each day or week to write and write. I used to get up early but have become less disciplined and find it hard to write when I have a lot of work on. But when I am in the swing of things, I try to write for at least an hour four times a week. I write on a computer but I always carry a notebook and when I am writing it’s also important to find time to think. It’s not good just sitting down without having some idea of what I want to do. The best place is usually the bath and then bed and by the time I wake up, if I’ve put my mind to the next chapter or whatever I am writing, there are usually enough seeds to get started.

Every time I walk past the Wolseley in Piccadilly, I try to peer in, fully expecting to see Frances consoling Polly – two of the characters from Harriet Lane’s first novel Alys Always. I have had dreams about the Kytes’ house, Nevers, she created, so vividly did she depict it.

I was lucky enough to hear Harriet reading at the Bookish Supper Society last year and in the questions afterwards she was asked what her next book was going to be about. She only gave us a tantalising couple of sentences – it was called Her and was about two women. It was about jealousy and obsession; two of my favourite subjects. The suspense has been killing me.

Emma is mother to three year old Christopher and is pregnant with her second. She has given up her job in television to stay at home. Lane expertly captures that essential contradiction of motherhood: how that fierce love and protectiveness for your baby/child can co-exist with the sense of one’s own identity and needs being erased, especially in the early years. Emma is feeling particularly flustered and weighed down by the hum drum monotony of her life when she loses her wallet and a woman, Nina, finds it and kindly returns it to her.

Nina is, in Emma’s eyes, everything she is not. A painter by profession and on her second marriage with a seventeen year old stepdaughter, she oozes poise and privilege. Emma’s husband teases her about what on earth could a woman like that, want to be friends with her for? But Emma is flattered by the attention.

The idea to tell the same incidents from each woman’s respective viewpoints is inspired. Far from being repetitive, it makes for a really queasy, unsettling experience. Things that seemed mundane and innocuous (Emma returning to a tidied up house after Nina has been babysitting, a baby’s crying curtailing a dinner party) are given a whole new chilling slant once you read what really happened.

Very slowly, with Lane masterfully laying subtle clues, it becomes clear that Nina has an ulterior motive for her apparent friendliness and that something else altogether is going on. But what possible grudge could she have? And how far will she take it?

Her is one of those books you really can’t say too much about without giving things away but I devoured it, greedily, in two sittings.